The Hunter's Daughter [Paused]

Chapter Three

Long black hair tickled Dezzery's waist as she laid on her back in the stream, wearing nothing but an old white shift. She had immediately got to work after her nap, spending the rest of the morning getting dirty up to her elbows in animal viscera. Afterwards, she decided it was best to bathe after cleaning her clothes before going on deliveries with her sister rather than scrubbing her arms in a bucket.

The cool water caressed the sides of her face as it ran past her, trickling over the parts of her that rose above the shallowness of the stream. She wanted to enjoy the water while she still could before the warmth of late summer was chased off by the coming cold months. The blood from her chore was long gone by now. The cuts on her arm had healed to fresh pale pink skin beneath the bandages she removed earlier. The cold of the stream numbed the dull aches she still occasionally felt from her forearm she injured in a ravine weeks ago.

Dezzery twirled her fingers around the single lock of white hair that grew from the nape of her neck as it drifted towards her hand. The motion sent the rest of her hair swirling beneath the surface as inky black tendrils. She gazed up at the late morning sun shining through the green and gold canopy of the trees bordering the water as she thought about how much trouble the lock of white hair caused her; aside from her eyes of course. Her father had told her she had the odd white streak since he carried her home the day he found her. If her parents had been her birth parents, the village would have whispered of Dezzery possibly being a child of great power or baring some rare gift due to her odd features. But she was not the biological child of the Von Houten couple, so the rumors about their adopted eldest daughter were hardly of the positive sort.

Most of them were around calling her a changeling or a faerie child, claiming she must have been left by a faerie passing through the Oakenward in exchange for the baby girl Nelle and Rolph recently had together. But Abilene never got taken away or been anywhere near to being in danger once Dezzery had arrived.

Since the traditional narrative did not fit, some villagers went on to whisper about her being a dark witch's child. They looked like any other human aside from small details that varied slightly. Though they never had the pointed ears of elves, they sometimes would have odd colored eyes, strange shades to their hair, or an odd mark on their skin. Dezzery's white lock of hair and violet eyes certainly fit but had never shown any clear signs of being able to bear magic. Nothing of great magical impact had happened when she came of age at twelve nor at sixteen. Nothing had happened when she had turned eighteen last winter either. She could cross off being a lost daughter of a witch from her list of where she might have come from. Besides, even if she was, witches weren't always seen in a bad light by some in the village. Most of them took up roles as healers in the villages and towns they decide to dwell in and blend in perfectly to modern society. Few of the darker more powerful witches remained on the continent as far as anyone was aware. Most of the time, those witches preferred to be left alone with their strange familiars and dark magic. Witches also tended to bleed red with shimmers of gold or silver in their blood depending on if they focused more on light or dark magic. Dezzery's blood had always run red from all the times she had skinned her knees or accidentally cut herself with her tools while learning her father's trade.

Dezzery slowly rose from the stream, gently wringing her hair of the cool water. The old shift clung tightly to her lean frame as she picked her way through the rocks of the streambed. A couple of golden maple leaves floated past her ankles in the water. She watched as they swirled around the rocks protruding the surface. They spun madly just before they entered a small rapid downstream.

If I had magic, drying off would be so much easier, she thought as she reached the pile of clothes waiting for her on a large, flat rock. Her hunting tunic and pants were still damp from being washed before her decision to bathe. On the other end of the rock were her dry clothes: a gray chemise, a matching cotton skirt, and a deep blue hooded bodice. The appropriate wear for a standard young woman to wear while strolling through the main road of a village in contrast to her preferred leather trousers and tunic. The hood was an addition her mother suggested to her grandmother who made the bodice for her. Nelle's reasoning was it would be easier for Dezzery than having a shawl get in her way all the time. The hood also was another iconic trait to pick her out of a crowd, but a few other young ladies in the village had the same thing.